Gem Hunting
by Curtain Hero
Summary: Several years after the defeat of the Rebels, life stays relatively the same for the working man (or woman, in this case). However, when an old myth arises from the stones, Catherine Tilter has got to pick between two sides and leave behind her mining engineer's life and discover life as an engineer on board a ship.


The Mark VIII Mining Walker worked swiftly.

It was like, Catherine observed, a four legged insect. Only it shot lasers from the underbelly and deployed Mark II Mining Drones from the million of tiny holes littering it's body every few seconds. It was a slow process, but it payed off well.

Unlike, say, forcing slaves to mine.

She'd always thought slave mining was a disgusting business, yet she'd never had the heart to complain. Space is too big for complaining nowadays. Besides, she didn't want Federation officials breathing down her neck and constantly asking questions that did nothing but drive her further from the truth.

She was perfectly happy with a normal mining engineer's life. She'd build up both the planet's technology and her own experience here, make people happy, travel into space, find another planet and do the same.

Sighing, with what seemed like bliss, Catherine turned her head, once again, to the mining walker. It's beams had finished cutting out the perimeter of the cylinder of rock, it was now automatically putting those beams together to cut right into the center and deploy more mining drones to mine it from the inside out.

"Foolproof." Catherine thought aloud.

She sighed again. Tearing her sight away from the walker and onto her work, a broken mining drone, she loosened one last screw keeping the terminal away from her with one measly panel. It fell onto the floor with a small noise.

Catherine twirled the screwdriver in her hands and placed onto her bed with a flourish. In front of her crossed legs was her toolbox. Fitted with everything she needed for repairing, disassembling, assembling, tampering, sabotaging, hitting and lunch.

From her toolbox, she, with another flourish, produced a small, blue scalpel-like thing with white flowers plastered all over it.

Sliding open a small hatch with her gloved fingers, she reached in with the scalpel and took out an almost-red, smoking service core.

She didn't need to examine it, it's damage was clearly because of the overheat it had sustained while trying to get power into necessary systems which were, quite violently, crushed during mining.

She placed the core into a pocket inside the toolbox labeled 'Fix' with a heart crudely drawn in pink underneath and felt around in her apron pocket where she found a brand new service core she'd saved just for this sort of occasion. She fixed the core in place with ease, and covered the hatches up just as quickly. Then, with some force, she twisted a small cylinder out of the top-center of the spherical drone. This was the mainframe access, where she turned the drone back on and switched it from emergency power, which was depleted.

Hugging the drone closely to her, she pressed a button by her a bed that caused the window to open fully. A cold, chilling breeze blew inside. Catherine knelt on her bed by the window, still hugging the drone close to her apron - This was the part Catherine hated in that loving kind of way.

She held the drone out of the window with the same sad look she wore every time. She spun it around. And with one heavy sigh, she let go of it. It flew off back to the depot, not even turning back to wave, which, of course, it couldn't.

She stayed like that for some time, leaning out of the window and appreciating the morning snow. Her dorm was not decorated much. A few posters, a bland cupboard filled with clothes she never even wore, a ceiling lamp that she hated and a small, hexaganol container sitting in the cornor by the door.

Speaking of the door, tree slow, yet sharp knocks pounded from the other side of it. Catherine waited; the droids usually let themselves in whether you wanted them to or not. She had yet to edit that out of their systems. Of course, she wasn't allowed to, but she'd probably find some way to break into them. Catherine stared at the droid accusingly.

It's silver frame lit up as it spoke. "Mining Team #3 requests all off-duty engineering and transport units report to level B7, Dock 1. Repeat..." It rolled back and forth on it's treadmills as it repeated the message. Catherine was already tying her blonde hair into a long, scruffy pony tail that usually meant engineer-related business.

"Sure," She said absently. "I'll be right there in a minute."

"Negative." It stated, immediately. "Urgency scan results in request: 89.62% urgency. Depart at once."

"Fine, fine. You're the boss." Catherine said in a defeated manner. The droid paused before finally realizing this was an unclear 'affirmative'. It slowly rolled out of the rooming, beeping as it went.

Catherine closed her toolbox and picked it up carefully, causing the contents to rattle. Catherine adored this sound for... no apparent reason, it just soothed her, and that was all she needed.

She paused just before opening the door and spun around to face the small container. She lightly tapped the lid with her foot, causing it to wir and hiss into life. The lid split apart down the half, and opened. Out popped a drone that was slightly smaller than it's older brothers. It was painted pink and had some letters scratched into the side; 'P1nkx' and 'Mark II' scratched into smaller figures on the side.

Upon picking up Catherine with it's - her, rather - sensors, it attempted to spin around and squeak happily, but only managed to crash into the door and make a barely audible buzz. Still, it was happy to see Catherine, who smiled at her creation.

"Come on, girl. We've got work to do." Catherine urged. The little robot chittered and spun again, dunking slightly through the air and rising back up again like a drunk piloting a stealth bomber. The girl smiled with glee. It was good to see her pet flying just how she wanted it to.

She passed a, supposed, female slug on the way out of the above ground female dormitories. It was surprisingly quiet for a Friday morning. She took a coat from the coat-rack and threw it around herself - the snow was especially bitter in the mornings.

Upon rounding the corner and exiting the building, Catherine felt a medium-sized, warm hand on her shoulder. She didn't even have to turn, she gripped his - definitely his - hand and used it top spin herself around.

"Don't think I don't know where you're going, Cath." He said, he was wearing heavy battle armor, for impressing and intimidating (mostly impressing) those lower in rank. He wore a face mask across his mouth so his calm, narrow eyes were still visible. And, as usual, his crazy hair went pretty much everywhere but where it looked good. Which was, in most people's opinion, far away from civilization.

"Deck B7 girl, right Cath? Don't try and hide it. I hear and see everything." He said, emphasizing the see. Catherine promptly threw her arm around his neck and pull him into a headlock. She was now turning the tall and creepy older brother act into a shorter, aggressive little sister act. This action caused P1nk to recoil in alarm.

"See everything, eh? Everything?" She said hysterically.

She had pulled his head right down next to her decently sized chest and he was struggling under her grip while trying to escape, not be noticed or... look.

She threw him forwards. "So you know what's going on down there?" She asked.

He straightened himself, trying to regain his posture. "Of course." He leaned in closer and said in a hushed tone. "They've found something."

Catherine stared at him for a moment before he shrugged. "Helpful." She said, taking off for the maintenance elevator that led into the deep mining shaft nearby. Inside, she would take a tram to B7 and find out what the hell this was all about.

"Hey, wait!" Said the man. "Can I come too? I've got nothing better to do and I swear I'm off duty this time." He joked. Catherine looked at him for a moment and laughed.

"Only because you look so pathetic. Come on."

Hephaestus Prime. That was the planet. Well, not the planet Catherine and the man, named Harry, were on, but the that was the name of the planet they were orbiting. They were on Hephaestus Gamma, the third moon. Gamma mined the ores, Beta was tasked with exporting them to Hephaestus Prime, and Alpha was the source of all imports that, of course, made their way back to Hephaestus Prime, which was a planet of great trade, prosper and wealth.

And, just like anywhere else, the Federation sniffing around in every corner like a Mantis merc.

It didn't matter to Catherine if it was the Rebels running the place or the Federation, she didn't like them.

They didn't patrol around Gamma as much as the other moons because it was small, and the occupants were like one large family. They had security, like Harry, to deal with any troublemakers, like Catherine (occasionally).

Catherine had lived on this moon for 10 of her 19 years. Although, age didn't really matter in space, the only thing that came close to age was whether you were alive or dead. Catherine was the former.

Her parents were the latter, or so everyone believed. A small voice in the back of her mind had constantly whispered to her, telling her they may still be alive. Catherine had always tried to push this voice far away, seeing it as a childish dream, no use to anybody.

Of course, she wouldn't mind if they were still out there somewhere...

The man beside her was Harry, he was in his early 20's and had always acted like Catherine's brother. Older? Who knows.

The chasm they were in right now was hot. It would get hotter as they got down. It was usually hotter in colder planets because of the misalignment caused by the atmosphere generators and so on. It was well worth it, though. The entire planet was rich with ores used across the galaxy.

However, it was too deep to get the walkers down into the caves, and there was far too much ore for the drones. So either the slaves were carrying all the digging tech down here, or they were digging themselves. They weren't happy about it, that was clear, often starting fights among themselves, but it was swiftly dealt with by the security team.

It was a curse in disguise, working in a mine - bodies were easily hidden.

The trams were used to get through the tunnels, around the pits and over the magma. Because why would you walk across a precariously built platform, when you could ride a precariously built tram that could easily slide off the riles as if they were butter? These thoughts disturbed most miners.

"Oh, crap." Harry said, ducking down into the brightly lit tram, catching the attention of the other passengers heading in the same direction. "It's the captain on the other tram." He hissed. One passenger coughed and tried to find great interest in the wall they were sliding along. Catherine scanned the tram on the opposite side of the chasm. Indeed, there was a tall, rocky figure stooping down at the front of the tram looking glum. Catherine delivered him a coarse wave and he glared at her for a moment, nodded and shrugged her away. Charming.

Awkwardly, Harry got back up from the ground and dusted himself off. He said nothing for the rest of the trip.

The Head Engineer was already waiting for them with a small crowd of people holding torches and idly chatting. They seemed... uneasy.

The chubby head engineer skipped over to them and looked at both of them sternly.

"Surely you don't see this mission to be so dangerous that you need to bring along protection now, do you, Catherine?" He said, looking over the top of his glasses.

Some of their colleagues behind the Head Engineer muttered something about this seeming like a perfectly valid idea.

"But, sir, we don't even know what this 'mission' is." Catherine pointed out.

"No? Look here, you see this crystal?" His stern look was replaced with a look of vast fascination and a dangerous twinkle in his eye. Both Harry and Catherine peered at the crystal with intrigue. "Our sensors had never found this before, and we ran it through a scan, we found a whole blasted ship on the other side! That's why you lot are here," He said to everyone. "To explore and excavate this ship! " He then turned and clapped. Four Mantis slaves came from the shadows, pushing a giant drill on treadmills towards the crystal breach in the rock. It reminded Harry of stories his father told him when he was young of sieges on Earth.

Then they simultaneously cranked the handles they had used to push the drill towards the crystal, causing the drill to spin and bust down the crystal barricade with ease.

"Headlights on, everybody." Said the Head Engineer, turning his own on. "Oh, and, guard?" He said suddenly, looking at Harry. "Guard the slaves, will you?"

Catherine gave Harry a smug little grin as she entered through the breach. He slowly turned to the slaves and fiddles with his pistol.

"Err." He said.

The first thing that caught Catherine's attention were the crystals. The others were undoubtedly aware of them too. The massive spires of crystal, vertically reaching through the ship's floor and piercing through the cieling. They were the biggest crystals, smaller and darker crystal patches crowded around them, trying to climb up.

The second biggest attention grabber were the rows of stasis chambers, symmetrically plastered onto the sides of the walls. All contained Engi, powered down and lifeless. Some chambers were broken and destroyed however, and in them lay piles of metallic limbs. It was indeed an eery sight.

At the end of the large room, there were two sets of stairs on either side, both leading up to a central platform that oversaw the rest of the was also a large, inviting control panel.

"Trill, can you get up there and get see if there's any power in this thing? Try and get the lights on, too." Somebody said. The others agreed. Trill, a Zoltan, reluctantly climbed the stairs and began fiddling with the computer.

Catherine closely examined a seemingly untouched stasis pod. The Engi inside was dead, that much was obvious, but nothing had killed it. It was in the stasis chamber at one point, and then somebody had turned it off. Nobody could've damaged the wiring, or the emergency power would've kicked in.

So why were the chambers turned off? This question hung in the air of the spaceship, each person quietly examining it.

"Boss," Said Trill. "You might wanna see this..."

"What is it, man?" said the Head Engineer.

"There's power. All of it." He explained. "And it's going into..." He punched a button on the screen. "This!" Behind him, a large capsule lowered it's blast shields to reveal...

Another stasis pod. Another stasis pod that contained a Crystaline.

The lights in the chamber were working perfectly, and it illuminated the dim room slightly. The bubbles were rising past it's still body. The stasis chamber was perfectly functional.

"Wake it up." Said the Head Engineer, climbing the stairs towards the pod. "We're going to have a nice chat."

"B-... But sir! That thing did all of this..." He motioned to the crystal spires. "Besides, those things were supposed to be a myth made up by the Rebels to give them an excuse to have lost years ago."

Several Rockmen in the party frowned and muttered something, but the others just nodded and watched the situation play out.

"I don't care if it's a myth or not, Trill. Look at it. It can make us more money than this goddamn moon is worth. Deactivate it's stasis."

Trill gulped. He pushed the emergency stasis relief button, and he swiftly moved down the stairs to join the back of the crowd and cower. Catherine, unlike Trill, was standing towards the front of the crowd, watching the Crystilian with great interest and, like Trill, she had also thought this race was a rumor.

Slowly, the liquid drained from the pod and the interior plating rose.

The creature stumbled out, hushing the crowd. It opened it's wide, amber eyes and stared at the Head Engineer from the ground where he knelt. The Engineer did nothing, he simply stared at the creature as a horrible smile appeared in his face. Of course, the crowd couldn't see this.

Slowly, the Crystaline rose and extended it's long, sparkling arm as if it were going to touch the scientist's face.

Suddenly, a long, thin spike pounced out of the thing's arm, impaling the scientist's face entirely. Catherine went pale. Trill was the first to zip out of the room, he was soon followed by a mob of screaming Zoltan and frantic Engi. Few of the rocks and Mantis stayed.

The Crystaline's crystal spike retracted back into it's palm and he walked forward, towards the railing. Slowly, he looked at the stasis chambers on both sides of the room.

"Brothers..." He said, in a deep, almost monotonous voice. "You didn't have to give yourself for me, did you?"

Swiftly, the four Mantis slaves swept into the room, led by Harry. His Mark VI Long-Range trained directly on the Crystaline's head.

"Don't move." He said.

"I didn't intend to," Said the Crystaline, motioning with one hand to the body beside him. As he did so, small streams of crystal flowed directly into the body's heart, melting his flesh and organs into crystal "but this woke me." He paused and seemed to consider something. "Yes, this woke me for it's own selfish desires. That is intolerable."

"Catherine get away from that-" Harry was interrupted by a light, crackling sound. Turning all attention to Harry.

"_-ome in? -All un-nde-att-k!_" This was followed by a higher buzz. "_Repeat- All units. Gamma is under attack. All units report to above gro-_" Then it was cut off by an explosion.

The ground rumbled, the lights dimmed.

And the attack began.


End file.
